Engage & co-create

Why should you be listening to the blogosphere?

"Your reputation is a conversation that's happening now," said Rob Key, ceo of Converseon.  "The conversation is happening now; you can join it or not."

That's a good summary of the first breakout session I attended, "Engage with the audience: From Listening to Co-Development."  Companies don't need a huge, 29-point strategy that takes months to develop to start this process.  The first step is to just start listening, whether it's through simple tools like Google or Technorati, or whether you go to a more sophisticated service like BuzzMetrics.  But just start.

Once you know what's being said, companies can decide how to act.  Engagement can take many forms.  Two forms discussed in this session were co-creation at the product level and co-creation at the advertising/marketing level.  Forward-thinking organizations are using both.  The panel noted Nike, Puma, Intuit and Lego as examples of companies doing co-creation of products.  It means getting consumer input in ways other than traditional research, like focus groups, to guide you in the right direction.  And other companies, like Converse and Pabst, are letting fans decide how to tell the brand story.

Sitting here, listening to these evangelists, makes me want to shake some of our clients and scream "Wake up"!  But of course I won't do that.

Comments

[Matt]

Perhaps these clients are afraid of what they will hear? Or even worse that what the consumers are saying is true. Sometimes it is easier to ignore what is really being talked about their brand. Just like parents sometimes ignore their children's problems.